Not Afraid of Storms
by Jedi Amoira
Summary: Elan undergoes the Joining and becomes a Warden, an experience that leaves her--and Alistair--confronting some mixed feelings as a result.


Disclaimer-- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters there-in, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.)

*Most dialogue is taken from or modeled after DAO.*

Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge. Further, like all fanfic writers, I am fueled by reviews. If you like and want more, please encourage me by telling me so. If you see something you dislike or think needs to be fixed, I will be happy to learn...but please be gentle!

Note-- This stand-alone fic is a fragment of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I wanted to post.

Title Reference: I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship. --Louisa May Alcott 

* * *

Elan took the goblet, cradling it in the palms of her hands. It was heavy, and so cold it seemed to blaze and burn, so that she nearly dropped it in surprise. The surface of the liquid in the cup lurched and jiggled in an odd way, gleaming with a black-red irridescence in the low light.

She raised it and took a slow, deep draught. It was thicker than wine, heavier than hot lard; it seemed to slip and slide and congeal in her mouth and throat.

She swallowed and swallowed and kept swallowing and still it sat in the back of her throat like a stone...yet she could feel the fumes blazing their way up into her nose, so every breath she took seemed filtered through thick, stifling gloom. She could feel it burning down into her chest, coiling and constricting around her heart, squeezing it as she had seen Nan pulp boiled apples.

Fear screamed through her body, filled every vein and every pore.

A far distant piece of her mind dispassionately remarked on the irony of it all—that she should survive the fall of her House, that she should come to Ostagar, and fight her way through Wilds...only to be felled by an unpleasant taste in her mouth. _How Father and Fergus and Gilmore would laugh! _ The thought made her smile...or it would have, if only she could have managed it.

In that instant, she relaxed...the stone slid down her throat and landed in her stomach with a heavy thud. She could feel it dissolve...feel it begin writhe its way through her like misty fog, like grief...blackening her very soul...

The rush of blood...her blood and this new blood—both alien and familiar—sounded in her ears like the whispering chorus of fate..._gone, lost, destroyed...ruined...I am here...as you are mine, so I am yours...come...save...kill...destroy...ruin..._It lapped through her and against her like the very tide, carrying her out to sea.

She gasped and gave way, let go and let herself be carried...she was borne up and lifted...

Beneath the whispering of the waves, she thought she could hear another voice—a more solid voice—a voice she felt she ought to recognize...a voice she felt she ought to welcome... "It is done. You are a Grey Warden."

She was cold. She was cold and she was drifting. She was...

_swimming and swimming with no way to reach shore...she could see them there: her parents, their arms about one another, gazing out to sea, watching her progress with concern...Oren, jumping up and down and waving...Orianna, counseling him to be patient...and there on the dark, jagged rocks of the cliff behind them...looming over them where they could not see...a great shape...dark and red and scaly with spreading wings...their shadow covered her family...it covered the world...the shape raised its head, and she saw directly into its blazing eyes...it was as if she had fallen from the sea into a pit of lava....and it burned...it burned...it burned so deeply that she shivered....the shape, the thing, the dragon, the Archdemon...it threw back its head and screamed...and the scream filled her head with a bright and blinding white flash of light that made her feel as if her entire being had detonated..._

_...she was wandering the Wilds in the midst of a blizzard so thick she could scarcely see the trees...she was looking for Fergus...he wasn't there...she saw a wizened old woman who looked like that one who'd taken and given the treaties...and her eyes were the eyes of the dragon..._

She was...she was...lying on a pile of furs near a fire. Someone was tucking a fur-lined blanket about her shoulders...she felt...comforted.

She opened her eyes...and saw Duncan standing over her, his expression...almost...well..._paternal. _A sharp pang jolted through her heart, accompanied by a sibiliant hiss in her head. Alistair was hovering over Duncan's shoulder, his face uncharacteristically drawn and grim.

"You're awake," Duncan said. "How do you feel?"

Elan's tongue felt as if it had been dipped in bronze. It took a couple of tries to get it to move. The words it formed seemed to catch and tear at the raw edges of her throat. "Not...Nothing you said...prepared me...for...that."

Duncan's dark eyes were as cool and steady as the sea she'd dreamed herself afloat in...or had it been a dream? She wasn't completely sure. It had all seemed so real. So real. "Such is what it takes to be a Grey Warden," he said, making the words both a salute and a lament.

"Two more dead," Alistair said sadly. "In my Joining, only one died...but it was..._horrible_..." he grimaced. "I'm glad one of you made it at least..."

Elan tried to give him a smile, but wasn't entirely sure she'd succeeded. She felt drained. And she wasn't completely convinced she was lucky to be alive. She felt...cursed. _Well, come to think of it, if the Chantry is right...maybe I am. _

She looked so small and white and spent. Alistair couldn't begin to fathom how she'd weathered the storm in her blood. Or how she would continue to do so. He'd begun to fear she would never wake up.

Duncan, on the other hand, had never lost faith. _Do not fear, Alistair_, he'd soothed, _She has survived thus far, and she will continue to do so. Her resilience is her strength. _Alistair wanted to believe him...he'd never known Duncan to lie...but she didn't look resilient now...she looked dry and brittle...and broken. Still...she _had _survived, and that was something.

"Oh, before I forget..." Alistair added, "we take some of that blood and put it in a pendant...something to remind us...of those that didn't make it this far." He leaned forward and dropped a small glass cabochon with a flat silver back and a silver chain into the palm of her hand.

To his quiet satisfaction, she studied it for a moment, tilting the pendant to watch the light of the fire glint across the wine-dark gleam of the blood inside, then slipped the chain swiftly and silently over her head. The pendant settled just below the hollow of her throat, looking livid against her ghostly skin.

"Did you have dreams?" Alistair asked. "I had...terrible dreams...after my Joining..."

Duncan shot him a look. "That...and other such aspects of being a Grey Warden...can be explained in the months to come," he said coolly. "For now, there is much to be done." He turned to Elan. "I'd like you to join me in a meeting with the king as soon as you are able."

Elan was startled. That he would wish her presence when she was clearly ill and off-kilter. That he would wish her presence at all. That he would invite her and not Alistair. But perhaps he had already invited Alistair. Whether he had or not, Alistair certainly didn't look concerned.

Duncan had walked away.

Elan gave a faint grunt of exasperation. "He's not big on explanations, is he? I suppose you know where to find this meeting of his?"

Alistair smiled. "Remember where we first met?"

_As if I would ever forget...Oh, Maker help me, that has to be the most incredibly inappropriate thought I've ever had._ Elan flushed hotly. "Uh...I think...I could find it..." She suspected she knew the answer, but she asked anyway. "Coming, then?"

"Nope. I avoid those things whenever I can," he said fervently. "Have fun."

"Oh, gee, thanks."

"What can I say? I am nothing if not generous."

Elan snorted and rolled her eyes, a reaction Alistair judged to mean she was already feeling more like herself again. "Well, then, I guess I'll see you soon. Be good." She walked away from the fire with a step closer to a shuffle than a stride, head bent, as if in thought or just plain weary.

"I do my best," Alistair murmured, squelching the urge to run after her and offer her an arm to lean on. He doubted she'd appreciate having her weakness commented on...even indirectly, and he had to respect that. Besides...going into that meeting...especially without explaining...well, the _**situation**_ to Elan ahead of time...was a very bad idea...even if he was suddenly almost dying to see the look on Cailan's face...that was surely beneath his dignity as a Grey Warden...this time, at least.


End file.
